


Dar'manda a Mando'ad

by Aondeug



Category: Chronicles of the Kencyrath - P. C. Hodgell
Genre: F/M, Legends Canon, Star Wars AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9125437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aondeug/pseuds/Aondeug
Summary: Taken away by the Jedi Council as a child it has been years since Jame has seen her brother by blood. But is the boy she once knew still her brother, or has he lost his soul like so many other Mando'ade? (Star Wars AU, Legends Canon, Mandalorian Jame and Jedi Tori)





	

How long has it been? Twenty Galactic Standard years give or take. He’d say otherwise, but the exact length isn’t important. What’s important isn’t the number of the years, but what they’ve done to him.  


Looking at him from across the room shows you a lot of it. He’s as shy as ever, but more so now. Or perhaps not so much shy as he is standoffish. Coolly sitting off in his own little bubble, maintaining it as much as possible. You figure it’s that jetiise calm they beat into their own, which for so many gives an air of respectable other-worldliness. For you it just seems off, and it’s not as though you’re the most sociable person in the galaxy. When the alien feels alien herself something is definitely off, you think.

 

He’s also so measured in what he does. The single bowl of food he took was modest, overly so. It’s been eaten at a regular, almost droid like pace as well. As though hastily eating would throw the Force itself off balance. He never did like eating much, but before he just wouldn’t eat. Now he forces himself to and looks eerily graceful doing it.

 

You marvel at his posture some too. He sits up straight and perfect, like a rail. Some might say that isn’t that odd. After all, look at Brier who is always a stickler for proper posture. Standard military training does that to a person. Torisen isn’t a soldier though, nor is he at all like your other vode who slouch or curl up or lay on the floor. No, him? He is just so oddly perfect. He could set aside that bowl and place his hands in his lap and he’d look as though he were meditating. Or rather he would be, you think. That’s what the jetiise do.

 

Overall your brother is so much not gar vod anymore.

 

When he finishes that bowl of food he stands up and takes his leave, giving a light word of thanks. Scurrying away he goes, oh so calmly yes, but still scurrying. He is Tor’ika still in some respect, and it’s his nature to scurry. That and to whine, and he had already fulfilled that quota with aplomb earlier. Save him from a blaster bolt through the head from your clan and he just complains and looks all aghast. Like you’re some sort of monster leading him to its den.

 

But then again to him you likely are a monster. All aruetiise look at you and your family poorly, but the jetiise harbor a particular dislike towards the Mando’ade. Born Mando’ad and raised it for the first few years of his life or no he was no Mando’ad now. He’d never gotten his beskar’gam, not even a buy’ce. No, he chose robes for himself after he threw you across a room in a rage. He left as a monster only to come back viewing what was once his as monsters. Huh.

 

Rue is next to you, chattering away. Fussing and fretting over your armor. She was one adopted into the culture so her concerns are often odd ones. Does keep the suits functioning and fit though, if a bit weirdly pristine. You brush her off and stand up. She frets about your meal and how you’re going to drop dead if you keep this up and you brush this off too. Rue pouts. Brier frowns. You go.

 

Go to chase down this now foreign brother of yours. It doesn't matter who your father is, no, but Torisen still matters to you. Dar’manda or no he’s still Tor’ika because you’re stubborn that way. You’re adamant on remaining stubborn too, and you feel he has been too. In his own weird way. You don’t know much about the Force, despite Tir’buir’s attempts to teach you what he could find when it was apparent you had it too. You do know enough to know that your brother by blood has been poking at you through the years though. Regularly. 

 

He has gone to hide in a room without any of your family in it. You see him off to the side, hidden away in plain sight. He sits near a wall, but back not against it because his posture is simply that perfect. Legs are crossed, hands are in his lap. He’s gone to go and hide away in meditation until he can run off. Run off back to his civilized temples and Coruscant. And he’s ignoring you. He seems adamant about ignoring you too. You stare at him, observing him again. Noting his posture, his hands, his seeming lack of all movement save a light breathing. Even after jotting all this down in your head he ignores you as you stare. You stare long and hard and try your damnedest to stare with the Force too. Never very good at it, but good enough to annoy your brother, surely. You get nothing from him though, save for a frown and what feels like a mental shove of annoyance.

 

No words. Not even the start of a childish fight or any of his darling moping. Which would be welcome over total silence. Over being treated like some inconvenience that needs to leave and then to be forgotten.

 

“Tor’ika!” you shout, refusing to cease in your staring. He doesn’t respond. Not even through the Force. So you shout it again and again he does not respond. You could just walk off. You should just walk off. You have siblings already, but you don’t because dammit he’s here again and you’ve missed him. Whiny brat or no you miss curling up with him at night and fooling about and kneeing him in the face.

 

Which sounds quite good right now and so, without a thought, you draw up your leg and attempt to knee him in the face. You miss. Interestingly so. You never missed when you caught him off guard as children. But then he is a jetii and they’re always slippery. You only have to aim if you don’t have the Force behind your back.

 

Dodged or not he doesn’t look very dignified. He is scampering away, kicking his legs out to push himself away. His eyes are wide with shock and his face is red. “Kriffing sake’s Jame, are you trying to kill me?” he asks, clearly offended by this turn of events.

 

“No. I’m trying to get you to talk to me,” you say plainly. You mean it. You’re very direct this way. It offends people a lot.

 

It offends him, “Talk? Is that what you call this? You tried to take out my nose!” He pushes himself up and stands as tall as he can. Puffing himself up almost. You doubt they teach that sort of pride at the jetii school and that makes you smile. He frowns because of course he does. He doesn’t get it, no more than he does how serious you were earlier. That’s just how it is with Torisen.

 

Still grinning away you say, “Well, it’s worked. This has been more talking than we’ve done in years.”

 

“Only because I can’t believe you’d just attack me like that. Or rather, I can believe it,” he says with a huff, smoothing out his robes, “Have you ever thought to grow up?”

 

Now that. That annoys you and you frown at it. It’s somewhat sad too. The gulf is now so wide between you. It always was honestly, but at least before he’d try to get you back. Always fail, yes, but at least he’d try. Now Torisen is simply a high and mighty coruscanti jetii. “Really? I’d say you’re the one that needs growing, Tor’ika,” you say with extra emphasis on those last two syllables, on the small, “If Tir’buir were here you’d be crying after him.”

 

“I would not,” he says haughtily and it hits you. He never asked.

 

“He’s dead, you know,” you add nonchalantly. Asked or no, he has a right to know. He was only your father after all.

 

Your brother’s face turns pale and he shuts up for a time. “Really?” he asks, more than a hint of unrestrained shock in his voice. It seems that even now Tir’buir was that nigh invincible man he was to them as children. Larger than life, always there. Always would be. “I wasn’t aware…” he adds as he looks away from you. Not physically no, more drawing himself inward. As though he has to calm himself down. Like he won’t even permit himself to mourn.

 

“You could have asked about him,” you say, hoping he’ll pull himself back out. That brief moment of just normal Tor’ika, small and scared and wanting to cling to your father. It was too short. He doesn’t though. No, he continues to retreat deeper and deeper into his jetii trance. Even as he responds with a “I could have, yes,” it is so soullessly calm. He can’t even mourn and it is rude to you, and to your father, and to himself too.

 

So you punch him.

 

This hit does not miss. Your fist collides right with his nose and you feel a crack. This makes how many times you’ve broken his nose now? At least three.

 

He recoils swearing, complaining, hoping to talk you down even bewildered as he is. You don’t back down though. His nose is bleeding and he is demanding you stop but you don’t. You raise a knee up towards him swiftly, aiming for his crotch. He darts back, wormy little jetii he is. Wormy, talkative jetii who hasn’t learned when to quit. Though neither have you. He wriggles and writhes avoiding what jabs you toss at him and he still tries to talk you down. You though, you are relentless, ruthless. Ruthless because you’re done with his running away but not yet done enough with him to simply leave.

 

And finally, finally he doesn’t run. He takes one of your jabs, yes, but he uses that moment of contact to shove you back roughly, forcing you off balance. And he takes a stance that Tir’buir had taught you both so long ago. And you grin wickedly at the sight.

 

So you don’t let up. You catch yourself and rush back at him, kick aimed high. You always did love kicking over much. A fierce fiery kick that he flows away from and under like water. He catches you somewhat off guard with a strike of his own at last: a punch. One that you dodge. 

 

For a time this is you both. Caught in a dance of just missed punches and kicks. An intricate and oh so natural sway of give and take. Like the childhood games of old, but deeper than before. As though the two of you were but a single being in two forms, putting on a play for no one to see. And in that moment you feel so much more certain as to what the Manda is and the Force too. Because the two of you are separate but one. You always have been. You always will be.

 

The two of you cannot dance forever though. No, Rue lets out a squeal of surprise and delight which throws you both off. Still, even as you stop, pulling yourself up to stand straight you laugh heartily. He is grinning too, your brother, though you’re sure he’s trying not to. “See, ner vod. Talking with me about Tir’buir wasn’t that hard.”

 

“My nose is broken. Again,” he says, curtly as he collects himself. It’s not his jetii chiding though, just his normal Tor’ika bitching.

 

“Oh, it’s good for you. Besides Rue can fix that,” you say before turning to look at the aforementioned interloper. And as you turn it’s gone. That odd closer than closeness is gone. Gone without a trace as he has had time to draw himself back in. 

 

Su dar’manda a n’uresvercopa. Not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
> Tor'ika - Little Torisen, a nickname  
> Tir'buir - Papa Tirandys  
> Vod(e) - brother/sister  
> Gar - your  
> Ner - my  
> Jetii(se) - Jedi  
> Mando'ad(e) - Mandalorian  
> Beskar'gam - Mandalorian armor  
> Buy'ce - Helmet, esp Mandalorian  
> Aruetti - Foreigner, outsider, anyone who isn't Mandalorian  
> Dar'manda - Not-Mandalorian, a Mandalorian who has lost his heritage and therefore his soul and place in the afterlife  
> Manda - Mandalorian spiritual conception. Similar to an oversoul and shared consciousness. All true Mandalorians are held to rest in the Manda after death.  
> Dar'manda a n'uresvercopa - Soulless, but not without hope.  
> Dar'manda a Mando'ad - Soulless but Mandalorian
> 
>  
> 
> Explanation of the AU:
> 
> This is just a snippet by itself and I do want to clear up and provide some background details that I didn't provide in the fic here. For flow and space reasons.
> 
> The AU takes place pre-empire though how much so I've not decided. The Dreamweaver and Tirandys used to work for a Hutt crimelord named Gerridon. Feeling awful Tirandys stole the Dreamweaver away and fought to keep her as safe as possible, while also passing on what he could to her. The pair ran into a Jedi named Ganth. Awkward romance ensued and the Dreamweaver became pregnant. Ashamed and horrified Ganth ran away. Shortly after the twins were born Gerridon had managed to track them down and the Dreamweaver was killed. Her death did give Tirandys enough time to escape with the kids though.
> 
> The twins were raised as his own children for about ten years. However the Jedi Council had caught wind that the boy of the pair was Force sensitive and thus went out on a quest to acquire him. Talks between Tirandys and the Jedi went poorly. However during a fit of anger Tori hurt Jame with his Force powers, and horrified he ran off to the Jedi near their camp to prevent it from happening again. From that time on Tori was raised as a Jedi and had no contact with Jame. Being Ganth's source of shame he was a frequent target of abuse from the man. Jame meanwhile continued to live with Tirandys until he too died in the never ending quest to get away from Gerridon's crime syndicate. Following this she has wandered the galaxy as a bounty hunter adopting nine other women and men into her very small clan. They are the Ta'raysh Traat'aliit (Ten Squad).


End file.
